Christmas 2011

I love the holidays. Seeing the Christmas lights at night makes everything seem so pretty. Until they come down and everything looks bleaker than it did before.

Then comes all the cookies and fudge and all the other goodies we eat at Christmas. I think it was Santa’s idea. He just wants us all to be fat like him. Blah! I gained six pounds munching out.

The children are fun at this time of the year. You tell them Santa is watching them and it shuts them up—temporarily. But then you watch them opening their gifts, one after another after another, and they don’t seem a bit grateful. They throw it aside with that look of “I guess this is okay,” and move on.

Except for five-year-old Autumn. She’d open a gift and say, “I always wanted a watch. Or, “This book is great.” She actually read one whole book immediately upon opening her presents at our house. Yes, I did say she READ the entire book. She knew all the words and numbers and was happy she got several books.

This year we had to be happy seeing Autumn on Christmas Eve. It’s that new thing were parents split and one year one parent has the child on Christmas Eve and the next Christmas Day. Her Aunt Emma was not happy that she didn’t get to see her niece who is six months older than she is on Christmas Day.

Three-year-old Noah was happy as could be with the various trucks he got, while younger brother Sterling played with his toys as well as his brother’s. 

One of our 13-year-old grandsons was happy with his new toy—an IPod! Who wouldn’t like one of those? And the other 13-year-old grandson wasn’t so happy when he got his DSS or whatever that game thing is taken away from him. Why? Because he didn’t wait until Christmas to get into it, just took it and tried to hide it. Santa takes things away when you don’t play by the rules. Guess he has a lesson to learn.

Our 12-year-old grandson is almost always happy. He, like the other two boys, got gift cards so they could shop for themselves.

The older girls are easy to shop for—they like Bath and Body stuff.

Our family has grown immensely over the years. The house was filled with lots of food, lots of laughs, and presents. I am happy to know Christmas is a year away. That gives me plenty of time to shop—again!